


Candy Crush

by Deastar



Series: Heat [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:05:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1659116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deastar/pseuds/Deastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>As soon as there’s a lull in the conversation, he says, staring into his microscope, “You’re not getting any older.” </i>
  <br/><i>“I am,” she replies, “but you’re right – only very slowly. As are you.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candy Crush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laulan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laulan/gifts).



> For laulan, who got to the end of my first draft of Heat and asked, "What happens to them?" There's a lot of stuff between Heat and this story, but this is where these two failers end up.

After three years, Bruce notices. He has too much contact with all of their biological records and samples not to.

He puts off mentioning it to Natasha, out of cowardice, but eventually even all his powers of rationalization can’t justify that any more. He brings it up during one of the times when Natasha is perched on one of his workbenches, idly flirting with him while he works. Times like this are probably the happiest he’s ever been, so, of course, he has to ruin it.

As soon as there’s a lull in the conversation, he says, staring into his microscope, “You’re not getting any older.”

“I am,” she replies, “but you’re right – only very slowly. As are you.”

Bruce hadn’t necessarily expected her to admit it that fast, or at all, and he flounders in silence long enough that Natasha goes on without him.

“Neither of us are original-factory-settings human. You know that.” She sounds unconcerned. He still can’t make eye contact with her, not until he gets this out.

“You and I could live for another hundred years, probably,” he says. “When we started… this… I don’t know if you knew that. I’m guessing you didn’t think you were signing up for—anyway, I understand if, now that you know, you want to change your mind. Things change, and I wouldn’t ever hold you to things you said—not that I could anyway.”

He risks a look over at Natasha, trying to gauge how she’s taking it.

She’s…

“What are you doing?” he asks, flummoxed, as she keeps swiping her finger across her phone’s touchscreen while little colored lights reflect off of her face.

“Playing Candy Crush,” she says, voice as bland as he’s ever heard it. She makes a complicated series of swipes in quick succession, her mouth quirking up at the corner in satisfaction, while Bruce continues to stare, dumbfounded.

Without looking up from the screen, Natasha says, “Your three-year self-pity allowance has run out. From now on, whenever you start wallowing in your self-esteem problems in front of me, I’m going to do something more interesting.”

Bruce blinks. Natasha continues swiping at her phone screen. He tries to decide whether he should be offended, or touched; but it’s not really much of a contest.

The answer is what matters.

That Natasha managed to say, “I want to be with you forever” by flipping him the bird is… _That’s the woman I love_ , Bruce thinks, ruefully. If he’d spent more time actually thinking this through than trying to sabotage his own happiness, he’d probably have expected this kind of reaction, rather than dithering like a dumbass about having some kind of Oscar-winning couples therapy session.

And so he throws back his head and laughs, loud, from his gut, until Natasha looks up from her phone to give him a look of quiet amusement.

“Fair enough,” he acknowledges, grinning.

“Good,” she replies. “Besides,” she adds, as Bruce returns to his microscope, “there’s very, very little chance that the two of us will live another hundred years together.”

“Oh?” Bruce asks, glancing over at her.

Natasha shrugs. “I’ll probably die violently long before old age becomes a concern. You’ve always known that.”

“I have,” Bruce agrees, although privately, he can’t shake the irrational feeling that if Natasha were going to come up on the wrong side of a violent interaction, it would have happened by now. She’s older than he knows, and she’s made it this long—she’s only getting more experienced, and more cunning, with time.

“And even if I make it to old age, you won’t.”

“For most intents and purposes, I can’t be killed,” Bruce points out. He adds the disclaimer to forestall their well-worn argument about whether he can really say that he can’t be killed if only “amateurs”—Natasha’s description—have tried.

“Like this, you can’t,” Natasha agrees. “But with a hundred years to try, eventually you’ll figure out how to reverse what you’ve done to yourself. You’ll find a cure, and then you’ll take it. And your body will catch up to all the years and the punishment that it’s been put through, and you’ll die. And I won’t.”

She says it so matter-of-factly that it takes Bruce a few seconds to hear _I’ll be left behind,_ hovering between the words she said out loud. For a moment his heart clenches. Then he reaches into the pocket of his lab coat, pulls out his phone, and starts up Candy Crush.

It takes Natasha much less time to figure out what he’s doing than it had taken _him_ , five minutes ago, and when she does, she laughs. Hopping down from the workbench, she pulls the phone out of his hand and kisses him soundly.

“I deserved that,” she admits.

“You did.” Bruce brushes her hair away from the side of her face, stroking his thumb up the line of her cheekbone. She’s so beautiful. She always will be. He wants to be there to tell her that, over and over again. She doesn’t say anything—just strokes her own thumb up and down the line of her bruises on his neck, giving him time to gather himself.

Quietly, with his eyes fixed on her collarbone, he says, “If I find a cure… You’re right. I’ll take it. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I will. But not—I won’t leave you alone. I’ll wait to take it, until… I’ll wait for you.” He’ll live with the crawling wrongness, the constant sapping anger, the brutality, all of it, and count every day with her cheap at twice the cost.

“Oh.” Natasha’s voice is soft, surprised. He feels her hands cradle his face, and then she tilts his head up for a kiss of such surpassing sweetness that his hands tremble and his knees go weak.

When she pulls back, he searches her face. “What was that for?”

“I know you so well,” she says, and her gaze is considering. “But I never knew, until just now.”

“Knew what?” Bruce asks, heart pounding.

“That you loved me more than you hated yourself.”

The insight leaves Bruce winded, swaying. “I… I do,” he whispers, needing her to know that, even as he tries to come to grips with it for himself.

“Yes,” Natasha murmurs. “And this is probably a sign of psychosis, but I have to admit, I find that incredibly, bizarrely romantic.”

That startles a laugh out of Bruce. “You know me,” he says, smiling, leaning in to kiss her again.

“And you, me,” she replies, in between kisses. She pulls back a little, still smiling that sideways smile. “I’m making the Candy Crush thing a rule, though.”

“That’s fair,” Bruce agrees. “But it won’t be a Candy Crush thing forever—eventually people won’t have smartphones anymore.”

Natasha shrugs. “As long as human beings have electronic devices, we’ll come up with dumb time-wasting games to play on them. I’m not worried.”

“Some things don’t change, huh?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Natasha says, voice steady, gaze piercing.

“I’m learning,” Bruce replies, meaning it with all his heart.


End file.
